Many patients with previous malignancy or with other risk factors often require a biopsy of a newly detected radiographic finding. At centers without a dedicated thoracic surgeon, this is typically done through a morbid thoracotomy or via a percutaneous core needle biopsy, which unfortunately 1) often provides non-diagnostic results due to a missed lesion and 2) does not provide the substantive amount of tissue that is nowadays required for genetic assessment of the cancer. Modern thoracic surgical techniques allow for rapid accurate assessment of these nodules with small ports and hospitalizations that are often less than 24 hours. This allows for a greater and faster flow through the multi-disciplinary lung tumor assessment process and leads to overall faster better treatment.